Regions

Open the challenge list in any Borderlands 3 zone and you can tell which part of the game built it without looking at a loading screen. The base game asks you for Typhon Logs and Dead Claptraps. Guns, Love and Tentacles asks you for Mancubus statues. Bounty of Blood asks you for Sato's journals. Psycho Krieg asks you to fix radios.

Read across our twenty-two zone pages and the split is total. Not one of the base game's challenge types appears in a DLC zone, and not one of the DLC types appears anywhere in the base game. There is no shared category at all, which is unusual enough to be worth building a guide on, because it tells you exactly how much of what you already know transfers when you buy a season pass.

The four challenge sets, and which zones use them

The shape of our own coverage changes at the same boundary, which is a fair reflection of how the content itself is built. Base game zones get a page each, because each one holds a mixed handful of challenges from the same shared pool. The DLCs get a page per challenge type instead, because a single Bounty of Blood challenge runs across five zones and would make no sense chopped into fifths.

The base game's set, and the one piece of it that is a reward

Six categories, and they behave differently from one another in ways the in-game list does not explain.

• Typhon Logs come in threes, and they are the only category with a payout attached. Collect all three in a zone and a Typhon Dead Drop opens somewhere on the same map, which is a red chest by another name. Ambermire puts its Dead Drop on the south edge of the dock area.
• Dead Claptraps are single pickups tucked into places you would not walk through, a shack behind monster pods, the inside of a crashed ship.
• Crimson Radios are always a tower you have to climb rather than a thing you have to find, usually by chaining two ladders.
• Targets of Opportunity are named enemies. Ten of them exist across the whole game and they are covered together in our mechanics guide to them.
• Hijack Targets are a vehicle behind a power puzzle. Eight in total, and they unlock permanently once registered at a Catch-A-Ride.
• Legendary Hunts are one beast per area, ten in all, and no zone has more than one.

That structure means a zone's challenge count is mostly a function of how many Typhon Logs it holds, since those come three at a time and everything else comes one at a time. It also means a zone with nine challenges is not three times the work of a zone with three.

The base game zones by challenge count

Six of our zone pages state their own total, and those are the ones worth planning around.

The two nines are the densest zones in the game and both carry the full set, logs and claptraps and radios and a hunt and a hijack target together. Devil's Razor adds a Target of Opportunity on top, which is Hot Karl up a ladder on a hill. Pyre of Stars at the other end is deliberately narrow, a corridor of a map with a Dead Claptrap and the Swarm Host hunt and nothing else.

The rest of the base game zones do not publish a count, so read them as sets rather than as numbers. The Droughts is the tutorial map and carries only logs and claptraps. Meridian Metroplex, The Anvil and Tazendeer Ruins each carry four of the six categories. The Splinterlands and Desolation's Edge carry a hunt and a hijack target and are the ones to save for a vehicle run. Skywell-27 is the outlier, a station map with no radio tower on it at all.

Guns, Love and Tentacles: three new categories, and none of the old ones

Four of our zone pages cover this DLC and every one of them draws from the same trio. Mancubus Eldritch Statues are armoured, so corrosive damage or a grenade breaks them far faster than bullets. Hammerlock's Occult Hunt is a single named creature per zone, which is the Legendary Hunt idea rebuilt under a different name and a different reward. Gaige's Gifts are simple pickups.

The zones grade neatly by size. Cankerwood holds three, one of each type, and is the only zone in the DLC that does. Skittermaw Basin, Dustbound Archives and Heart's Desire hold two each. Heart's Desire is the last area in the DLC and cannot be entered at all until you have the laser for Deathbot, so it is the one to check off last whatever order you work in.

This is also the DLC that holds the four rare spawns behind the A Hunter Through and Through achievement, one of which waits in Cankerwood, up on a plateau beside an ECHO log.

Bounty of Blood and Psycho Krieg: one challenge, five zones

Gehenna does something the base game never does and runs a single challenge across the entire planet. Sato's Saga scatters journals and a cache through The Blastplains, Ashfall Peaks, Bloodsun Canyon, Obsidian Forest and Vestige, and the second challenge, Skin to Win, does the same with eight bosses. Each of those eight hands over a specific named legendary rather than a roll on a table, which makes it the most predictable challenge in the game.

Psycho Krieg goes further and ships exactly one crew challenge for the whole DLC. Signal to Noise spans Castle Crimson, Sapphire's Run and Benediction of Pain, and that is the complete list. Everything else that DLC asks you to collect sits inside missions instead, which is why its Vaulthalla switches are covered in our mechanics guide rather than here.

Handsome Jackpot sits between the two approaches. It is one casino split into five named areas, Spendopticon, Impound Deluxe, The Compactor, VIP Tower and Jack's Secret, and its challenges are handled as a single set across all of them. The five Pretty Boy statues are the best known of them, and blowing up all five earns the Firebug achievement.

Sanctuary, the zone with no challenges in it

Sanctuary 3 is the exception that makes the rule visible. It is a ship rather than a map, it carries no crew challenges of any era, and it is the only region page in this bucket organised by deck rather than by what you can find lying around. Deck A, Deck B and the lower levels hold the vendors, the Quick-Change machine you will use to respec, Crazy Earl at the bottom taking Eridium, the Lost Loot machine by the bridge, and the terminal that turns Mayhem Mode on once the campaign is done.

How big the planets actually are

Crew challenges measure how much a zone wants from you. Named locations measure how much of it there is, and our Named Locations list counts every one: 223 in total, with every per-planet figure it states matching the list underneath it.

Athenas has five named places and Pandora has seventy-eight. That gap explains most of what looks like uneven design elsewhere in the game, including why our mechanics guide finds five of the seven map systems skipping Athenas entirely. The seven standalone maps at the bottom of the table are the arenas and set pieces that belong to no planet, Slaughterstar 3000 and the Ghostlight Beacon among them.

Frequently asked questions

Do crew challenges from the base game appear in the DLCs?

No, and that is the cleanest rule in this bucket. Every DLC replaces the whole set with its own categories, so Typhon Logs and Dead Claptraps stop existing the moment you leave the base game's planets.

Which zone should I clear first for gear?

Devil's Razor or Floodmoor Basin, since nine challenges apiece means three Typhon Logs and therefore a Dead Drop chest, plus a Legendary Hunt reward that arrives by mail.

Can I finish a zone's challenges on the first visit?

Usually, but not on Pandora. Parts of it stay closed until the story is finished, which is why the last Legendary Hunt in the chain cannot be reached early no matter which order you work in.

What opens a Typhon Dead Drop?

All three Typhon Logs in the same zone. The chest then appears somewhere on that map and holds gear rather than a challenge tick, which makes the logs the only base game category that pays twice.

Why does Sanctuary have a page if it has no challenges?

Because you will be on it more than any single planet. It is the only place with vendors, a respec machine, the Lost Loot recovery unit and the Mayhem terminal, and knowing which deck each of those sits on saves more time than any collectible route.